inch Sulzberger scurried to the C-SPAN confessional even as the fires raged under the mammoth heap of ash and twisted steel that was once the Twin Towers and 2801 human beings. He had to make certain no one would blame The New York Times.

The Times' 1996 endorsement of bill clinton1 was the problem. The endorsement, you may recall, was contingent on clinton getting a brain transplant--specifically of the character lobe.2 How could the Times square that shameful, irresponsible endorsement with this monstrous failure3?

Sulzberger quickly explained that the Times was able to endorse clinton by separating clinton's "policies" from "the man."4 (Did he actually buy into the clintons' 'compartmentalization' con5? Or was this apparent credulousness simply another cynical expedient for The New York Times?)

Probing questions by the host, Brian Lamb, followed, eliciting this damning historical parallel from Sulzberger: "The Times dropped ball during Holocaust by failing to connect the dots."

It appears that The New York Times doesn't learn from its mistakes.6 Will it take the Times another 50 years to understand/admit that by having endorsed for reelection a "documentably dysfunctional" president7 with "delusions" -- its own words -- it must bear sizeable blame for the 9/11 horror and its aftermath8?

Sulzberger's carefully worded rationalization of the clinton endorsements points to clinton "policies," not achievements; is this tacit acknowledgement that clinton "achievements" -- when legal -- were more illusory than real -- that the Times' Faustian bargain was not such a good deal after all?

Elie Wiesel makes a distinction between "information" and "knowledge."6 Information is data; it is devoid of an ethical component; it is neutral. Knowledge is a higher form of information. Knowledge is information that had been internalized and given a moral dimension.

At a minimum,the Times' failure -- whether concerning clinton endorsements, or classified leaks or the Holocaust -- is a failure to make this distinction. More likely though, it is a failure not nearly so benign.

This legacy confab is in and of itself proof certain of clinton's deeply flawed character, and a demonstration in real time of the way in which the clinton years were about a legacy that was incidentally a presidency.

Madeleine Albright captured the essence of this dysfunctional presidency best when she explained why clinton couldn't go after bin Laden.

Albright explained that a [sham] Mideast accord would yield [if not peace for the principals, surely] a Nobel Peace Prize for clinton. Kill or capture bin Laden and clinton could kiss the 'accord' and the Peace Prize good-bye.

If clinton liberalism, smallness, cowardice, corruption, perfidy--and, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Cuomo, clinton cluelessness--played a part, it was, in the end, the Nobel Peace Prize that produced the puerile pertinacity that enabled the clintons to shrug off terrorism's global danger.

"In this interdependent world, we should still have a preference for peace over war....

But sometimes we would have these debates where people would say, if I didn't take some military action this very day, people would look down their nose at America and think we were weak. And I always thought of Senator Fulbright.... 6

So anytime somebody said in my presence, 'Hey, if you don't do this, people will think you're weak,' I always asked the same question for eight years, 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?'

I don't think we can bring 'em back tomorrow, but can we kill 'em tomorrow? If we can kill them tomorrow, then we're not weak.... 1

I learned that as a 20-year-old kid watching Bill Fulbright. Listening."

"I remember exactly what happened. Bruce Lindsey said to me on the phone, 'My God, a second plane has hit the tower.' And I said, 'Bin Laden did this.' that's the first thing I said. He said, 'How can you be sure?' I said 'Because only bin Laden and the Iranians could set up the network to do this and they [the Iranians] wouldn't do it because they have a country in targets. Bin Laden did it.'

I thought that my virtual obsession 2 with him was well placed and I was full of regret that I didn't get him."

... I thank you for this award, even though, in general, I think former presidents and presidents should never get awards. I was delighted when Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize because I thought he earned it, and I thought it was great because he got it as much for what he did after office as when he was in office. In general, I think that the fact that we got to be president is quite honor enough.

"Bill Clinton is still campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize. But for now, he'll just have to settle for "the political play of the week."

Bill Schneider CNN reporting on the Fulbright Prize April 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Two Norwegian public-relations executives and one member of the Norwegian Parliament say they were contacted by the White House to help campaign for President Clinton to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work in trying to negotiate peace in the Middle East.

"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

James Madison

hen the founders granted 'The Press' special dispensation, they never considered the possibility that traitors in our midst would game the system. But that is precisely what is happening today. (Hate America? Support jihad? Become a 'journalist!')

This was bound to happen.

The premise behind the First Amendment as it applies to the press--that a vigilant watchdog is necessary, sufficient--indeed, possible--to protect against man's basest instincts--is tautologically flawed: The fox guarding the White House, if you will.

Walter Lippmann, the 20th-century American columnist, wrote, "A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." True in theory. True even in Lippmann's quaint mid-20th-century America, perhaps. But patently false in this postmodern era of the bubbas and the Pinches.

When a free and great society is hijacked by a seditious bunch of dysfunctional, power-hungry malcontents and elitists, it will remain neither free nor great for long. When hijacked by them in the midst of asymmetric warfare, it will soon not remain at all.

If President George W. Bush is serious about winning the War on Terror, he will aggressively pursue the enemy in our midst.

Targeting and defeating the enemy in our midst is, by far, the more difficult task and will measure Bush's resolve and courage (and his independence from the MPRDC (mutual protection racket in DC)) more than any pretty speech, more even than 'staying the course.'

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Thomas Jefferson Letter, September 9, 1792, to George Washington

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

If Act I was a thinly veiled allegory about naked clintonism, then Act II is a parable about the plan for world domination by the Establishment, aged hippies in pinstripes all, with their infantile, solipsistic world view amazingly untouched by time.

"Unless we convince Americans that Democrats are strong on national security," he warns his party, "Democrats will continue to lose elections."

Helloooo? That the Democrats have to be spoon-fed what should be axiomatic post-9/11 is, in and of itself, incontrovertible proof that From's advice is insufficient to solve their problem.

From's failure to fully lay out the nature of the Democrats' problem is not surprising: he is the guy who helped seal his party's fate. It was his Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that institutionalized the proximate cause of the problem, clintonism, and legitimized its two eponymic provincial operators on the national stage. The "Third Way" and "triangulation" don't come from the same Latin root for no reason.

That "convince" is From's operative word underscores the Democrats' dilemma. Nine-eleven was transformative. It is no longer sufficient merely to convince. One must demonstrate, demonstrate convincingly, if you will which means both in real time and historically.

When it comes to national security, Americans will no longer take any chances. Turning the turn of phrase back on itself, the era of the Placebo President is over. (Incidentally, the oft-quote out-of-context sentence fragment alluded to here transformed meaningless clinton triangulation into a meaningful if deceptive soundbite.)

Although From is loath to admit it -- the terror in his eyes belies his facile solution -- the Democratic party's problem transcends its anti-war contingent.

With a philosophy that relinquishes our national sovereignty -- and relinquishes it reflexively and to the UN no less -- the Democratic party is, by definition, the party of national insecurity.

With policy ruled by pathologic self-interest-- witness the "Lieberman Paradigm," Kerry's "regime change" bon mot (gone bad), Edwards' and the clintons' brazen echoes thereof (or, alternatively, Pelosi's less strident wartime non-putdown putdown) and, of course, the clincher -- eight years of the clintons' infantilism, grotesquerie and utter failure -- the Democratic party is, historically and in real time, the party of national insecurity.

merica's real two-front war: fundamentalist Islam on the right and a fundamentally seditious clintonoid neo-neoliberalism on the left, both anarchic, both messianically, lethally intolerant, both amorally perverse, both killing Americans, both placing America at grave risk, both undeterred by MAD, both quite insane.

If we are to prevail, the rules of engagement--on both fronts--must change.

Marquis of Queensberry niceties, multicultural hypersensitivity, unipolar-power guilt, hegemony aversion (which is self-sabotage in the extreme--we must capture what we conquer--oil is the terrorist's lifeblood)... and, most important,the mutual-protection racket in Washington--pre-9/11 anachronisms all--are luxuries we can no longer afford.

Notwithstanding, the underlying premise of our hyperfastidious polity, (that we must remain in the system to save the system) is fallacious at best and tantamount to Lady Liberty lifting herself up by her own bootstraps.

neocommunistpolitical movement, a tipsy-topsy, infantile perversion of the Marxist-Leninist model, global in scope, beginning in the post-cold-war, unipolar 1990s, led by the '60s neoliberal baby-boomer "intelligentsia," that seeks power without responsibility, i.e., that seeks to dilute American power by concentrating power in said '60s neoliberals while yielding America's sovereignty to the United Nations, i.e., while surrendering to the terrorists, as it continues the traditional '60s neoliberal feint, namely: (1) concern for social justice, (2) disdain for bureaucracy, and (3) the championing of entrepreneurship for the great unwashed.

When a free and great society is hijacked by a seditious bunch of dysfunctional, power-hungry malcontents and elitists, it will remain neither free nor great for long. When hijacked by them in the midst of asymmetric warfare, it will soon not remain at all. - Mia T (2006)

One of the great perks of writing a weekly column is that when I get the runaround from a poorly designed e-commerce system and bad customer support, I can write an article to get my frustration out. If that happens to you, all you can do is pound your head against the wall!

Here I am, your dutiful reporter, looking for my subject today. Believe me, after two years of writing this column every week, it is not the easiest job in the world coming up with fun new stuff for you readers to hammer me on in the Mediapost blog.

So on the way into work, I got this idea. I remembered an article that ran in The New York Times about a musical running in Manhattan that sent an e-mail the day after people had gone to the show to remind them to tell their friends about the great time they had. I remembered seeing someone complain on the Inbox Insiders, a private list I run for e-mail marketers, about receiving a similar solicitation. Well, here is a good article, I thought. The only problem was, I couldnt remember the name of the show the Times wrote about.

So I went to the site--and after about 45 minutes of putting in one term after another and coming up empty, I finally found the article: You aw the show, now read the e-mail, by Jessie Green.

I clicked on the link .

Damn. Even though the article is only a little over a week old, the Times wants to charge me $3.95 to view it. So much for the new economy.

Okay, my readers are worth it. I pull out my credit card. I place my order. The confirmation comes back with links to the article: Click here to read the article it says. Yes, sir! I say, not yet realizing that Im a big dope, because

Yes, you guessed it; the link takes me back to the order page, not the article. OK, no problem, I think, still believing that an organization like the New York Times must have its poo-poo together. Yep, there is the confirmation e-mail saying they received my money. And the link to the article? Not there. Just a link to change my e-mail preferences!

Okay, I begin to see dark clouds on the horizon as I dial the customer support line. Of course I go through the usual nonsense of trying to FIND the customer support number. All of the ones on the site dont seem right and there is certainly NOTHING in the confirmation page or the confirmation e-mail telling me who to call in case of a problem.

And now Im in Press this number to go here, press another number to go there hell on the customer support line, and of course, none of the options pertain to the Web site or problems with Times Select. I choose one at random.

Well, no, Im not a home subscriber. It says on your Web site that you need to be a home subscriber to get it for free, I say.

Back on hold for 15 minutes.

Finally someone calls and tells me that there is no record of my purchase. Well, I have the e-mail right here, would you like me to send it to you? I say. No, a record of your purchase doesnt show up for 24 hours, says the customer support person. 24 Hours! But dont worry, technical support tells me to have you log out and log back in and then go straight to the article."

I do this. It doesnt work. And now I cant remember the name of the article it took me 45 minutes to find. Can the customer service person help me? Of course not, dummy, because it takes 24 HOURS (!) for me to get a record of my purchase. Apparently the e-commerce portion of the Times Web site is run by old men with green eyeshades.

After searching around, I finally find the article AGAIN. I cant get to it. It wants me to purchase it AGAIN. I call back. This time, they dont even pretend to want to help me: call the New York Times Digital, the woman says as if she is talking to a 5- year-old.

The New York Times Digital??? Nowhere, in any of the info, and phone buttons Ive pushed, or the (now) hour Ive been on line with customer support, has anyone said anything about the New York Times Digital.

I get the phone number. I call. I get someone. I explain my problem. Oh, yeah. Weve been having problems with that for a few days. I make a Homer Simpson sound.

He promises to send it to me. 45 minutes later it arrives.

Here is what I wanted to talk to you about: In an e-mail promotion for the musical The Altar Boyz, the producer, Ken Davenport, sent play-goers who have seen the show (and paid online) a thank-you note and a discount to take their friends. The open rates for these e-mails were off the charts: 70 percent.

If you want to know more, dont complain to me. Complain to The New York Times!

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